I’m a tad concerned about my chief Elf, she seems to have started writing in the style of me! Anyway, we’re having a festival on my roleplaying sim, it would be better if you tried to fit in with the surroundings if you do visit, there are free outfits available. Details at this point are a bit sketchy, but it seems to involve beer, women and dancing round the Maypole! Official notice below:
MAY FESTIVAL IN DEE
Come and join our celebrations of the return of the sun from its long winter slumber and the re-awakening of the land.
Quaff tankards of foaming ale in the ‘Cock a Hoop’ Tavern; Dance around the Maypole with lusty maidens; drag one off and throw up in the bushes…. no hold on that should be ‘drag one off and throw her in the bushes.
The reason this all sounds a bit odd is that there have long been project viewers for specific projects, so I’m not sure how this is going to drastically change much. In the blog post Linden Lab tell us that the problem with having only one beta channel is:
“In the past, we have used the ‘Second Life Beta Viewer’ channel for this final user validation, but because we had only one Beta channel, some features and fixes have been significantly delayed waiting for their ‘turn’ in the channel. We will now be able to put those Viewers in the regular Release channel to a smaller randomly chosen group, allowing us to test and release new features more quickly.”
Hmm, I’m still struggling to see why this is different from having project viewers, other than the fact that they may get more feedback by getting rid of the main beta viewer and replacing it with multiple ones.
“Fantasy Faire is always a treat for everyone involved, but this year has been especially great. The artistry and pageantry has been mind blowing to behold, the people have been a joy and fun to be around, and the events have been great.
The Dwarfins team has been blown away by the generosity of the Dwarfins community members who have gone above & beyond in their donations to the cause of fighting cancer. We’ve been overjoyed to welcome many new members that the Faire brought to us, and have reveled in the community spirit brought to us by this great cause.” – Judy Chestnut Of Dwarfins.
All good things come to an end and I’ll pretty much wrap up my Fantasy Faire coverage with this post, although you should never say never as there may well be more news to post, but I’ll mostly wrap it up here. I apologise to those of you who read my blog and have no interest in this event, but I love this event, it’s an event that exemplifies oh so well some of the excellent use cases of Second Life and that most certainly should be highlighted.
One complaint regarding events like this, and that applies to the other fairs that take place during the year, is lag. Fantasy Faire this year wasn’t that bad, but there were some who experienced problems. The thing is, this is Fantasy Faire, if you take away the beautiful buildings, the weird and wonderful avatars and their scripted accessories, you take away some of the heart of the event.
Although Fantasy Faire 2013 is officially over, there are still a couple of Fantasy Faire related events to run. There’s a short story competition in association with Prim Perfect: Weave a tale of fantastic landscapes for the Fantasy Faire / Prim Perfect Short Story Competition. Your story should be between one and three thousand words and the best entries will be published in the summer edition of Prim Perfect Magazine. One of the good things about blogging Fantasy Faire is that I’ve now discovered the excellent Calameo system Prim Perfect use for their magazine, that’s a really impressive platform.
Sunday night saw Fantasy Faire 2013 pretty much winding up with the one of kind auction in The Valley Of IshNar. This is an event whereby creators offer unique items for auction to raise money for Relay For Life and the event proved very popular:
Sim performance during the auction was excellent, with auctioneer Cortez Brandriss proving to be an expert auctioneer, all that experience from doing auctions for Oceania Breedables certainly came in handy there, she was fantastic.
The auction saw the fundraising effort for Relay For Life cross the eight million Linden Dollars barrier for this year’s Fantasy Faire, I don’t yet know what the final total is.
Fantasy Faire 2013 may well be pretty much over, but I’ve still got a few posts on the event to post and I’ll start with an interview with Khyle Sion. Khyle is the person who built The Dragonspire sim and spent a lot of time working during the event, meaning I couldn’t catch up with him! At one point he told me he’d been awake for 36 hours! Khyle also displayed some wares from his store, Refined Wild at Fantasy Faire, naturally in The DragonSpire sim.
CL : How Many Years Have You Been Participating In Fantasy Faire for?
Khyle : This will be my 3rd year participating in the Relay for Life Fantasy Faire; however, this is my first year having built an entire sim for it.
CL : What have you enjoyed most about your participation in Fantasy Faire?
Khyle : I’m a professional artist in real life, as well as in Second Life. Unfortunately, due to illness and circumstances beyond my control, I currently do not have the ability to create many substantial works of art to participate in public shows. I’ve been showing in galleries for a long time — since I was 8 or 9 years old, in fact — up until after college. I deeply miss all of the interaction and hustle and bustle of putting together a show or installing a work of art for people to enjoy.
The Fantasy Faire has allowed me to create new sculptures and installations to be showcased and seen by a large-scale audience while also using the same work to help raise money for cancer. Whether it be a fountain like “Violet Rebirth”, an interactive work that requires audience participation, such as “Paper Boats in a Paper Sea” — or an entire sim, such as “DragonSpire” (which was built in multiple levels, with winding tunnels and secret spaces and even a secret pet to hatch!), I’ve taken great joy in discovering an outlet for me to return to my traditional, fine-art roots. I take the Faire as an opportunity to share something new and exciting with the world — to inspire, and touch the hearts of those who take the time to stop, take a breath, and really look around.
